강남

나은 and I visited Leeum Samsung Museum of Art. The special exhibition was showcasing Hiroshi Sugimoto. I would call him a mixed media photographer for his more recent works featuring a variety of sculptures and videos. His execution of his ideas came through immediately and beautifully. He addressed issues of photography's ever changing role, religious iconography's impact on a modern (Accelerated Buddha) , and how art viewing has been manipulated.

Being in a metropolitan area allows me to frequent these great exhibitions. I'm wondering if it's the novelty of being in an art city that's drawing me to them, or if I'm actually drawn. Maybe both. It's at least comforting to think that an art degree is somewhat useful.

I met with 고모부 at Novotel in 강남. Anyway you look at it, it's strange to meet someone you know when both of you are thousands of miles away from home. Also strange was speaking English to someone in front of me. It's been a while. We went to a small restaurant that 고모부 accidentally discovered during a business years ago. 

We roamed around Gangnam for a couple hours.

Finished the night at a Japanese cafe. Turns out Japanese loveBaumkuchen, a European layer cake that was brought over during Post WWII period. 

 Next morning was Novotel's gym, sauna, then breakfast.

We visited 조선왕릉. 

Again Seoul preserving historical monuments faithfully in the middle of urbanization.

 I met with이모 to attend her friend's daughters weddings. Held at a hotel, the ceremony seemed secularized in terms of the lack of religious words as well as the lack of traditional Korean ceremonial rites.

The wedding ceremony was a quick 30 minutes of the parents speaking and exchanging of vows. The late lunch reception was void of dancing and the extended toasts of American weddings.